Forged in Iron
by the ticking clock
Summary: Simmons doesn't feel like herself anymore. May understands.


**This is terrible and messy but I have a lot of feelings, so there. Leave a review? **

Jemma Simmons died a long time ago.

She died with her lungs screaming for oxygen, with Fitz's hand locked around hers, with tears in her eyes and his name on her lips.

She remembers dying. She remembers the cold confines of that sinking vessel, the ocean endless and blue around them. Remembers whispering something about how maybe they would be reincarnated, and Fitz had laughed that desperately nervous, choked laugh of his and had said, _maybe a monkey? _

She remembers Fitz's tears, salty against her lips as she kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips, his cheeks, over and over. She remembers how _right _that had felt.

Before she'd died, before _they'd _died, everything had been perfect.

They'd been fitzsimmons.

Now, their names are hollow and separate on her tongue. She is just Jemma. He is Leo, because her Fitz had never looked quite so broken and lost before. Fitz had always been able to make her smile.

Jemma smiles readily enough- she can't help it. Her muscles have retained the memory of joy and they curl and twitch without her permission.

Once, Leo would have noticed that the expression does not reach her eyes.

Now, he doesn't look at her.

* * *

Jemma works diligently and does not complain.

Simmons would have been fascinated by the amount of new data surfacing about inhumans. She would have been dreaming about Peggy Carter beginning SHIELD, Captain America, the possibilities of super heroes and magic and wonder.

Jemma knows that inhumans mean dead friends and chaos and Coulson's hollow eyes and change, change, _change. _

She does not handle change well.

* * *

She dreams of drowning.

Jemma wakes up with a scream lodged in her throat and saltwater stinging her cheeks. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around herself and tries to remember how to breathe.

Her chest is tight and aching. Each breath is a low whistle. There's not enough air, there's not enough air-

Clenching her eyes shut, Jemma rocks back and forth on her mattress, her breaths rasping, hiccuping sobs, her mind filled with images of ocean water and Fitz's blank eyes.

* * *

Jemma walks to the lab early in the morning with her daily cup of hot tea. She's put on as much make up as she can find to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She's so distracted by her own thoughts that she almost runs into May.

"Oh!" Jemma exclaims, her face automatically twists into something that she assumes is a smile, "I'm sorry Agent May, I didn't see you there, I-"

May crosses her arms. "Do we need to talk, Simmons?"

"Talk?" Jemma says, her stomach twisting, "about, about what?"

"You may have gotten better at lying, Simmons," May says, holding her eyes. Jemma resists the urge to squirm at the intensity of that gaze, "but you are not going to fool me."

"I'm fine," Jemma says, proud that her voice does not tremble. "Excuse me, I have some tests to, um, do about-" she pushes past the other Agent and into the comfort of microscopes, machinery and the quiet of the lab. Fitz will not come in for at least another hour-he sleeps late these days-so for now she has the space to herself. Moving through the motions automatically, she washes her hands, focusing on the water, the warmth.

The nightmare slowly seems less terrifying in the light of day.

* * *

Around noon, after she's managed to avoid directly looking at Fitz for at least twenty minutes, and her phone buzzes.

It's a text from May.

_You coming to training? _

Jemma glances at Fitz, who is bent over his own microscope, and then texts back, _ok._

* * *

Training with May has always been Skye's thing, and Jemma is a little nervous when she faces the other agent. But May just gestures for Jemma to take up a fighting stance and holds out a bag for her to practice punching.

As Jemma begins to hit the bag, the material cold and soft under her knuckles, May watches her. The other agent's eyes are not probing, but there is something more behind her gaze. Jemma blushes.

Finally May just asks, "are you alright?"

Jemma stops her halfhearted punching attempts, breathing hard. She has no idea how to respond to that. She almost wants to smile and give the answer she's given everyone, tell May that of course she's fine, she's always fine, why was May even asking...

But she can't. She's tired, and her eyes are dry of tears and her chest still aches from holding in her screams. She's tired of seeing Fitz with weight on his shoulders and darkness in his eyes. She's sick of powers and aliens and losing people.

She is anything but fine.

Slowly, May lowers the bag. "You don't have to say it," the other agent says, surprisingly gentle, "I understand."

Jemma shakes her head, throat suddenly tight. "No one understands," she whispers, "no one knows what happened down there, and I can't explain it. I can't talk about it because it _hurts _May. And I know things are different now, and everything's changing, but I lost my best friend down there and no one seems to-"

She doesn't know when she started crying, but suddenly May is gripping her shoulder and saying, "I know, Jemma, I know," and driven by some impulse, Jemma pulse the other agent into a hug.

May is solid and warm and her embrace is surprisingly gentle. She wraps her arms around Jemma, strokes her hair. Jemma clings to her as tightly as she's ever held anyone and sobs into the other agent's shoulder.

"I know that no one understands, and it hurts like hell," May whispers, voice intent and serious in Jemma's ear, "but I promise you that you will come out of this stronger than you were before. You can do this, Jemma."

Jemma bites her lip, shaking her head. "I can't, May, I-"

"Shhh," May whispers. "You're going to be okay. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but someday."

Jemma pulls away and May smiles at her, just the smallest curve of her lips, and Jemma sees.

May understands.

* * *

The nightmares don't go away.

She still wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, still struggles to control her breathing, still gets nervous when she swims in water above her head.

Fitz is talking to her again, and sometimes they fall into a familiar rhythm and she thinks that maybe someday they will become fitzsimmons again.

Jemma is learning to be comfortable in her own skin. She can't go back to the way things were. She can't bring Tripp back. She can't fix Skye, she can't help Fitz.

But she can manage to laugh more.

She is slowly learning to be herself again, and when Fitz calls her Simmons and not Jemma, she doesn't correct him.


End file.
